So, I tried Dwolla • Hacker News Board

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#31

Post by powertower » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 10:41 PM UTC

zefhous wrote: post #21

What a poorly written and immature article! Calling Dwolla "a bunch of clowns" because you couldn't get your account verified right away is just ridiculous. It's also ridiculous to claim to "understand the whole fraud aspect" and then imply that they are engaging in fraud because the money hasn't been transferred back to the other guy's account within a single business day. And claiming that Dwolla is too good to be…

Which service would that be?

The original one were you could transfer in, transfer out, buy bitcoins, all in a 24h window - or the current one were it takes paperwork, and 30 days before they allow you to even send funds out that are in your account?

As far as I can tell, Dwolla is only a good fit if you have a business that can't take credit cards (high risk, or sells CC processor "banned" items like Kratom), which actually quite well explains why they are so difficult to work with (due to fraud checks and prevention).

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#32

Post by jboynyc » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 10:46 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #2

I'm curious if others have had similar experiences.

Only good experiences here. I've also referred at least two other people who have been happy with Dwolla. Unfortunately their service is really important in the U.S., where transfers between banks aren't as easy as they are in Europe (and, I suspect, much of the rest of the OECD world).

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#33

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 10:47 PM UTC

zefhous wrote: post #21

What a poorly written and immature article! Calling Dwolla "a bunch of clowns" because you couldn't get your account verified right away is just ridiculous. It's also ridiculous to claim to "understand the whole fraud aspect" and then imply that they are engaging in fraud because the money hasn't been transferred back to the other guy's account within a single business day. And claiming that Dwolla is too good to be…

News flash: Customers get upset when they give you their bank details and you act like an opaque, incompetent bunch of stonewalling nitwits. They will jump to all sorts of conclusions that aren't necessarily justified if one is aware of the whole story. Ric Romero has film at 11.

Got a problem with that? Don't go into the payment-processing business.

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#34

Post by zefhous » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 10:58 PM UTC

niggler wrote: post #30

zefhous wrote: post #21

What a poorly written and immature article! Calling Dwolla "a bunch of clowns" because you couldn't get your account verified right away is just ridiculous. It's also ridiculous to claim to "understand the whole fraud aspect" and then imply that they are engaging in fraud because the money hasn't been transferred back to the other guy's account within a single business day. And claiming that Dwolla is too good to be…

You didn't read the complaint. 'Currently, there's 10s of thousands of dollars that have been removed from my business partner's account, that are sitting in Dwolla's accounts, that Dwolla claims they will "return in due course."' That should never happen. If there are fraud problems, they should be clarified and settled before the fact, not while they hold onto the cash. The sum is too large to take to small claims…

I did read it, and I see no evidence that they are holding on to the cash.

Dwolla was trying to verify his information at this morning at 11 am. His business partner transferred money through Dwolla, so of course that's where it is right now waiting to get passed through to him.

If Dwolla is actually holding on to the money and refusing to give it back, then there's a story — but I don't see any evidence of that.

Like I said, these things take time. I believe this post was published about 3 hours after they called to verify the account — he tweeted about it at 2:06 PM.

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#35

Post by alanctgardner2 » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 11:06 PM UTC

cykod wrote: post #10

Clowns implies that they screwed something up or did something wrong - from his story, he signed up and moved 5 figures of cash immediately (which is either exactly the limit of a business account or over it, see https://www.dwolla.com/about ) if I were in the payments business (and I was previously) this would have been a fraud red flag. This is something that happened today (April 18th) - this is not five days of w…

This is an excellent point, the site says "Up to 10,000 for businesses, with the possibility of increasing it". So obviously he's opened a brand new account, and then tried to pull more money than he's authorized for. That seems like it would take some time, and I would have talked to Dwolla before I had them send the money.

On a side note, I love their payment method comparison matrix (on the page you linked). It's factual, but a bit cutesy, and just a little bit mean to Paypal (who totally deserve it).

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#36

Post by xer0x » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 11:20 PM UTC

Me too. I was totally frustrated when trying to signup. I didn't have the paper work they wanted, and so I had to use another service.

I understand that fraud is serious. However, I'm very disappointed that I wasted a lot of time trying to signup with them too.

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#37

Post by metaphorm » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 11:23 PM UTC

zefhous wrote: post #21

What a poorly written and immature article! Calling Dwolla "a bunch of clowns" because you couldn't get your account verified right away is just ridiculous. It's also ridiculous to claim to "understand the whole fraud aspect" and then imply that they are engaging in fraud because the money hasn't been transferred back to the other guy's account within a single business day. And claiming that Dwolla is too good to be…

lets see some identifying credentials from you. prove to us now that you are not employed by Dwolla, and have no other business interest in Dwolla.

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#38

Post by at-fates-hands » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 11:25 PM UTC

>>>>>>"What I will not gladly do is let a bunch of folks who I have no idea who they are other than a web site ever again reach into my bank account."

Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to let them handle so much of your money. To me, this is putting a LOT of faith in web site to handle that much money right away on a brand new account.

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#39

Post by kenmck » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 11:25 PM UTC

Why is it that people think that they can open a payment account, transfer thousands of dollars into it as their first transaction and no one will ask any questions or be the least bit suspicious?

Re: So, I tried Dwolla

#40

Post by uuilly » Thu, Apr 18, 2013, 11:25 PM UTC

I tried to use Dwolla and it it was absurd. I set my account up fine. My friend sent me $1200 for a ski lease. I withdrew it and it appeared to work. Days later when the money did not appear in my bank account, I checked back and it said, "processing withdrawl" (or something like that.) It said that for many days before I contacted them. They said I needed to scan my drivers license and send it to them. The only account that has a copy of my DL is the DMV. No other company in capitalism asks for a scanned DL except for (maybe?) my employer. They had my social for crying out loud! And their UI was so broken that it wasn't clear that anything was wrong. At that point I refused to deal with them and kicked the money back to my friend and had him go through paypal. To top it off, they won't delete my personal details from their servers.